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In President Barack Obama's jobs speech last
week, he hinted that startups aiming to raise crowd-sourced funds
might soon have fewer obstacles to jump and that small government
contractors could expect to get paid quicker. He also called for
passing patent-reform legislation. Though it's only been a
week, some of those provisions are already under way -- even
without Congressional approval.

Here are three Jobs Act proposals that were either given a green
light or close to it:

Paying small government contractors
faster:
Yesterday, the President announced his new "QuickPay" plan for
helping small companies that do business with the U.S. government
get paid in 15 days instead of 30, after they receive an invoice.
The program -- which is open only to prime contractors, or those
who work directly with the government -- goes into effect
immediately.

"I'm ordering all federal agencies to make sure those small
business owners get paid a lot faster than they do now," Obama
said speaking at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C.
"That puts more money in their pockets quicker, which means they
can hire folks quicker."

Reforming the U.S. patent system to speed up
processing:
As part of the Jobs bill he proposed last week, the President
called on Congress to pass comprehensive patent reforms.
Yesterday, the administration announced that President Obama
would sign the long-debated patent reform bill into law on
Friday.

Though the bill has been panned by a number of entrepreneurs and
small-business groups, the reforms are widely seen as helping
free up the backlog of applications at the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office. Some estimates suggest that there's a current
three-year-long backlog of 700,000 applications waiting for
examination.

Loosening restrictions on crowd-funding:
Separately, a congressional committee led by Rep.
Patrick McHenry (R., N.C.), today expects to hold a hearing on
how to clear the way for fast-growing companies and
entrepreneurs to use crowd-sourced funds to raise business
capital. Crowd-funding is a relatively newer way to raise
capital from many investors in exchange for small amounts of
ownership in a company.

Although this initiative is hardly a done deal, McHenry does plan
to introduce legislation in the coming days that would make it
easier for crowd-funded ventures to succeed. Among other things,
McHenry's bill would exempt privately traded companies that raise
crowd-funded capital from the Securities and Exchange
Commission's shareholder cap, which requires companies with more
than 499 investors to disclose financial information. Facebook famously came under fire for
nearly defying this provision in January. At the time, many
speculated that the social network would be forced to file a
public offering as a result.

Which Jobs Act initiative would you like to see get a
green light? Leave a comment and let us know.